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Research Resources

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by Topic : Student life (15)

Cipe Pineles's Editorial Design course dummies

Creator : Golden, Cipe Pineles

1970 or 1971, 20 items

Collection consists of twenty dummies created at Parsons School of Design by students in an Editorial Design course taught by Cipe Pineles. The course was situated in the Graphic Design (later Communication Design) Department. One of the dummies is Pineles's, used as an example for her students, titled, Ah, Me.

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New School guides and handbooks collection

Creator : New School

1983-2013, 3.3 linear ft.

This collection contains student, faculty, and staff handbooks from The New School and various divisions and departments within the university. The contents of these guides cover student life, degree requirements, information about living in New York City, among other topics. Faculty handbooks offer teaching guidelines and regulations, while materials created for international students provide information on adapting to life in the United States.

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New School Periodicals

Creator : New School

1940-2012, 3.8 linear feet

Consists of periodicals and serial publications produced by administrative offices, academic departments, and students of Parsons The New School for Design and The New School. Includes alumni publications dating from 1940 and student newspapers dating from 1957.
Periodicals: Included in this record group are publications issued on a regular basis by The New School, or schools, divisions and offices of the university. The Archives is in the process inventorying these publications and will make a comprehensive title list available online in the future. These materials are now available for research use; please consult with the Archives about accessing periodicals by title or research topic.

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New School photograph collection

Creator : New School

1920-2000, 9 linear feet

This collection primarily consists of photographs of New School students, faculty, administrators, buildings, class sessions, student life, and events. While the photographs span the period between 1933 and 1984, most of the photographs are concentrated between the 1940s and the 1970s.
This collection is a compilation of several groups of photographs transferred to the archives over several years, primarily by The New School's Fogelman Library and President's Office. Photographs depict class sessions, students, faculty, buildings, guest speakers and events, and many were clearly intended for use in New School bulletins and promotional materials. Some have been heavily marked up for publication. Also included are press photographs of guest speakers furnished to The New School by the speakers' representatives. Photographers, when identified, are indicated in the folder title.

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New School web archive collection

Creator : New School Archives and Special Collections

2016-2018, 215.4 gb

The New School Web Archive Collection consists of New School websites captured using the Internet Archive's web archiving software, Archive-It.
The websites collected are continuous with material held by the New School Archives in analog and other digital formats.
The websites collected here document public relations, events such as exhibitions, and public-facing publications. With the exception of The New School Labor Relations webpage, there are, as of 2018, no administrative sites contained herein.
Contents include websites related to university news and updates; critical, arts, and literary journals associated with university departments; exhibitions held at, or affiliated with, The New School; and websites documenting labor organizing and relations on campus.
Due to the size of the collection, the techniques and tools of web harvesting, and the evolving nature of the Internet, some websites have been crawled more comprehensively than others and are represented more faithfully than others.

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New School web archive collection

Creator : New School Archives and Special Collections

2016-2018, 215.4 gb

The New School Web Archive Collection consists of New School websites captured using the Internet Archive's web archiving software, Archive-It.
The websites collected are continuous with material held by the New School Archives in analog and other digital formats.
The websites collected here document public relations, events such as exhibitions, and public-facing publications. With the exception of The New School Labor Relations webpage, there are, as of 2018, no administrative sites contained herein.
Contents include websites related to university news and updates; critical, arts, and literary journals associated with university departments; exhibitions held at, or affiliated with, The New School; and websites documenting labor organizing and relations on campus.
Due to the size of the collection, the techniques and tools of web harvesting, and the evolving nature of the Internet, some websites have been crawled more comprehensively than others and are represented more faithfully than others.

Creator : Parsons School of Design

1968-2007, undated, 3.3 linear ft

Contains handbooks and guides issued by the administration of Parsons School of Design and The New School to familiarize Parsons faculty, students, and students' families with school regulations, policies, and procedures. Also includes materials designed to acquaint students with aspects of living and studying in New York City.

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Parsons School of Design poster collection (pre-2007)

Creator : Parsons School of Design

1927-2006, 22.3 linear ft

Contains 236 posters created for academic departments and administrative offices of Parsons The New School for Design, including promotional posters for summer sessions and study abroad programs, recruiting by specific departments, and publicity for exhibitions, public programs, and internship fairs. With the exception of a 1927 poster advertising a dance, the series does not contain any material created prior to 1956.

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Creator : Parsons the New School for Design. Adam and Sophie Gimbel Design Library.

1957-2009, 9.1 linear feet

The records of the Adam and Sophie Gimbel Design Library of Parsons The New School for Design consist of administrative files generated by library administrators and school executives. Topics include library collections, facilities, fund raising, instruction, policies and procedures, and staffing, as well as the library's role in school acceditation. While the earliest records document the library's activities in the late 1950s, the bulk of the records dates from the period after Parsons re-located from East 54th Street to 66 Fifth Avenue in 1972.
The earliest mention of a library appears in the 1922-1923 New York School of Fine and Applied Art course catalog. In addition to reference books in English and in French, the library also advertised photographic plates and lantern slides for the study of costume and interior design as well as a materials library. Mary E. Herrick, a "trained librarian," appears on the catalog's faculty page as Librarian and Museum Director. In successive decades, the school advertised the library's growing collections of periodicals, rare books, visual materials, and archival collections in the catalog and continued to list library administrators in the rank of school faculty.
In 1970, Parsons School of Design became affiliated with the New School for Social Research and in the following years transferred its operations from its East 54th Street location to 66 Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village. In 1974, the library moved to its present location on the second floor of 2 West 13th Street, and the previously unnamed library was dedicated as the Adam L. Gimbel Design Library in honor of a gift from the family of the Saks Fifth Avenue executive. In 1982, it was rededicated as the Adam and Sophie Gimbel Design Library following a fundraising initiative headed by Sophie Gimbel's son Jay Rossbach and Saks executive Helen O'Hagan.

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Creator : Parsons the New School for Design. Fashion Design Dept.

1963-2003, 41 cassettes

This collection primarily consists of documentary and promotional footage related to the Parsons School of Design Fashion Design Department's annual benefit and runway show, including the preliminary jury show where designs are selected to be included in the runway show. Also included is a small amount of Fashion Design Department related audiovisual material not directly connected to the annual benefit and fashion show.
Originally named the Chase School of Art, Parsons School of Design was founded in 1896 by American Impressionist painter William Merritt Chase with a focus on the fine arts: painting, drawing, and sculpture. Two years after its founding, the school changed its name to the New York School of Art. In 1907, Frank Alvah Parsons became an administrator at the school and made design an important part of the educational mission. He introduced the first full professional departments in interior design, fashion design, and graphic design. To recognize the growth of the design curriculum, the school was renamed the New York School of Fine and Applied Art in 1909. In honor of Mr. Parsons, who was important in steering the school's development and in shaping arts education through his theories about linking art and industry, the institution became Parsons School of Design in 1941. It became a division of the New School for Social Research in 1970.
The school offered courses in fashion design, then called "costume design," as early as 1904. Frank Alvah Parsons enlarged upon these courses to create a full professional department in 1907. Over the next four decades, its name was changed several times as follows: Costume or Clothes Design (1918), Costume Design and Costume Illustration (1921), Costume Design (1922), Costume Design and Costume Illustration (1923), Costume Design and Costume Construction (1925), Costume Design and Construction (1927), Costume Design, Construction and Illustration (1928), Costume Design and Illustration (1937). In 1954, the department was divided to form the Fashion Design Department and the Fashion Illustration Department. As of 2016, Parsons School of Design's School of Fashion offers AAS, BFA, and MFA degrees.
In the early twentieth century, the school’s fashion curriculum focused on the creation of sketches, which could be sold to manufacturers. Then, in 1915, the students not only sketched but began working with fabric and producing finished garments. In its current incarnation, the School of Fashion places an emphasis on understanding the entirety of the design process from the initial concept to the final product and its marketing. The curriculum seeks to educate students on the fundamentals of good design, as well as to develop essential skills specific to fashion design, such as model drawing and pattern drafting, which are applied to real-life design problems. Students also research the historical purposes and implementations of fashion design, study business practices, and investigate the commercial impact on the profession.
In 1919, to supplement the core group of instructors, the department initiated a program to invite stellar designers to critique student work. By 1954, juniors and seniors were working under the close supervision of special visiting critics to design and create garments. The department’s curriculum was revised in 2001, such that the critic mentorship program was confined to the junior year, while seniors worked independently to produce a thesis collection which exhibited their own individual style.
Notable fashion designers who have attended, although not necessarily graduated from Parsons School of Design include Gilbert Adrian (1923), Claire McCardell (1928), Donald Brooks (1950), Willi Smith (1969), Donna Karan (1969), Anna Sui (1973), Isaac Mizrahi (1982), Marc Jacobs (1984), Tracy Reese (1984), Mark Badgley (1985), James Mischka (1985), Derek Lam (1990), Narciso Rodriguez (1991), Behnaz Sarafpour (1992), Peter Som (1997), Lazaro Hernandez (2002), and Jack McCollough (2002).

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Sunbeam Randall student work

Creator : Randall, Sunbeam

1948-1993, 0.5 linear ft

Sunbeam "Sunny" Randall (1898-1993) graduated from Parsons School of Design Interior Design Department in 1951 and worked as a professional decorator. The collection includes course materials, furniture and decorative style sketches, class notes, and a scrapbook documenting Randall's art tour of Europe as a Parsons student in 1950.

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Ann Snitow faculty records

Creator : Snitow, Ann Barr

1986-2012, 1 linear ft

Records kept by New School faculty member Ann Snitow, largely documenting her activities in connection with the evolving status of gender studies courses and programs at The New School at the graduate and undergraduate level.

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Raymond Waldron papers

Creator : Waldron, Raymond

1939-1994, 4 linear ft

Raymond S. Waldron, Jr. (1913-2002) attended the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (later, Parsons School of Design) from 1938-1941. After serving in World War II, Waldron worked for Lord & Taylor. In 1965, he established his own interior decoration firm. The Raymond Waldron papers include his student work, a travel sketchbook, and professional files. Work from Waldron's years at New York School of Fine and Applied Art include notebooks with graded assignments, instructor handouts, sketches, and tracings; and larger-format renderings of European interiors and sites. A travel sketchbook reflects Waldron's later design studies in New York, France and Italy. Materials from Waldron's professional career include project files, design research, stereo slides of the Blair House, among other projects, and publicity for his business.

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Judith B. Walzer chron files

Creator : Walzer, Judith

1985-1986, .4 linear feet

This collection consists of interoffice memos and reports sent and received by New School for Social Research Provost Judith Walzer. Arranged chronologically, the files cover subjects such as hiring, admissions, and various committees.